The
Last
Generation
Forgotten
and
Left
to
DieAn Illustrated History
of the Donauschwaben

by Hans
Kopp, p

ublished
at
DVHH.org
14
Nov
2006
by
Jody
McKim
Pharr.

Introduction

The old cliché, “one picture
is worth a thousand words,”
holds especially true for
the Donauschwaben since the
time photography was
developed toward the end of
the 19th Century. We
are grateful for the
technology which was used to
the full extent by our
ancestors during the time
the end of World War II in
1945. Especially
grateful to

the individuals who took the
pictures showing the variety
of life during the last 50
years our culture existed in
the settlement regions of
Hungary or after WWI in
Romania and Yugoslavia; and
to
those
who saved and preserved
them at the end of the war and make them
available in the many books of individual
Donauschwaben villages, towns and cities.
These book projects were spearheaded by
small groups of men and women from these
villages, towns and cities of the so-called
“Heimatortsgemeinschaft groups,” who have
devoted and volunteered their valuable time
to document our history in word and pictures.

Many of those volunteers became the
members of the donauschwäbische
Kulturstiftung with Hans Sonnleitner as
their “Vorsitzeder” chairman. We find such
names as Hans Diplich, the designer of the
Coat of Arms, such scholars as Josef Beer,
Dr. Georg Wildmann, Dr. Valentin Oberkersch,
Dr. Ingomar Senz or Hermann Rakusch with the
illustrations and maps created by Magdalena
Kopp-Krumes. We also find a Friedrich Binder, Karl
Schumm, Anton Scherer, Oskar Feldtänzer,
Leopold Barwich, Fritz Hoffmann, Friederich
Kühbauch, Ernst Lung, Josef Pertschi, Martin
Reinprecht, Georg Tscherny and Dr Roland
Vetter. Then there are the many personalities such
as Stefan Nuber, who documented the death
camp of Gakowa or an Ernst Jäger, Hans
Gassmann, and Andreas Pfuhl, to mention only
a few of the many authors whose works,
collections of documents, articles and
pictures are priceless and provide the basis
for our complete history today.

Since all those books were written in
the German language, I was asked by Franz
Awender, the Vice
President of our Donauschwaben Society of
North America in 1995 to write a book about
the Donauschwaben in
the English with a picture
presentation depicting the lives of our
ancestors. The collection of
images in this book were
acquired by
many various contributors.

Their lives centered on the church. The
Sunday was holy for them and during the
summer months their Sunday afternoon where
often spent with friends gossiping and
talking about the latest news. By 4:00 pm
the farmers’
Sunday was over. The farmers had to go
about their routine work of feeding the
animals and milking the cows. During the
winter months one visited relatives and
prepared for the biggest holiday,
Christmas.

The chores during the summer months
were tending the fields and in fall the
farmers had to bring in the harvest. During
the winter months the farmer had to load
manure on his wagon and take it to the
fields to spread so the new plants would
grow strong and bring in another harvest to
sustain the lives of their families. In the
evenings the farmer had to work repairing
and making new bridles for his horses, fix a
broken wagon and other equipment.

In
this section we are pleased to present a
collection of pictures with captions,
depicting the lives of our Donauschwaben
ancestors. The pictures were selected on
the basis of their availability and
quality, and an effort
was made to select pictures from as
many villages as possible.